<p style="text-align: left;">“The committee should evaluate control of the border crossings and each border crossing should be run inside the governorate [where it is located],” read a statement issued by the prime minister’s media office.</p> <p style="text-align: left;">According to NRT Iraq’s Joint Operation Command said on Saturday that it has sent units to fourteen border crossings, including four seaports, to add weight to Kadhimi’s efforts.</p> <p style="text-align: left;">Before the prime minster made enforcing state control a priority, many of the crossings were run by locally-powerful political parties, tribes, and militias who expropriate customs revenues for themselves, robbing the state of financial resources and encouraging smuggling and corruption.</p> <p style="text-align: left;">On Tuesday, an official at the Ibrahim Khalil border crossing between the Kurdistan Region and Turkey denied rumors that the Iraqi Army had taken control of the facility.</p> <p style="text-align: left;">So far, Kadhimi has not visited any of the Region’s crossings with Turkey and Iran, which are operated by the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK).</p> <p style="text-align: left;">Reporter’s code: 50101</p>